


on the bus

by bibliosexual



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Bisexuality, First Kiss, First Time, M/M, Making Out, Marking, bus rides, werewolf stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-26
Updated: 2017-01-28
Packaged: 2018-09-20 00:30:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9467399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bibliosexual/pseuds/bibliosexual
Summary: “Yeah,” Erica says with exaggerated slowness, “I did like Kira, and now I like Boyd. I’m bi.”“Bi?”“Bisexual?” Erica prompts. “As in, not gay or straight?”Stiles is pretty sure hisentire mind explodes. “You can like guys and girls? That’s a thing?”Erica looks at him like,What planet are you from?“Uh, yeah. As long as they’re hot, I don’t care what gender they are.” She pokes him in the side, and he jumps. He’s always been ticklish, and unfortunately Erica knows it. “What about you? You ever like guys, Stilinski?”*In which Stiles and Derek ride the bus to school together, and there are bisexual awakenings.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Ch. 1 is rated T; Ch. 2 is rated M (or E. It's a bit iffy to me. The important thing to note is that there is sex).

The day Stiles is paired up with Kira Yukimura for a history project, he happens to mention it to Erica at lunch.

“Lucky,” Erica groans. “She’s so sunshiney and cute. I even used to have a thing for her.”

Stiles accidentally inhales his soda. It’s painful. “Wait,” he gasps when he can finally breathe again, “since when are you a lesbian? I thought you had your sights set on Boyd.”

“Yeah,” Erica says with exaggerated slowness, “I did like Kira, and now I like Boyd. I’m bi.”

“Bi?”

“Bisexual?” Erica prompts. “As in, not gay or straight?”

Stiles is pretty sure his _entire mind explodes_. “You can like guys _and_ girls? That’s a thing?”

Erica looks at him like, _What planet are you from?_ “Uh, yeah. As long as they’re hot, I don’t care what gender they are.” She pokes him in the side, and he jumps. He’s always been ticklish, and unfortunately Erica knows it. “What about you? You ever like guys, Stilinski?”

Stiles starts to say no offhand, but then he pauses, because… well. He’s always just assumed he was straight. He’s never even _thought_ to ask himself if he also likes guys. He’s barely even asked himself if he likes _girls_ , aside from Lydia Martin. It took him until this year to admit it wasn’t going to happen, she didn’t even know who he was, and they probably weren’t even that compatible. Any realization beyond that is just in a whole nother league.

Erica sees his nanosecond of a pause and _pounces_. “Aha! You hesitated! Who is it? Is it Derek Hale?”

Stiles splutters. “What? I dunno. No? Why would you think that?”

Erica just grins and says, “I’m telepathic. It’s a skill,” and goes back to eating her sandwich, probably because she knows her vagueness is going to torment him for the rest of the day. She’s not wrong.

*

There was a time when Stiles thought he would never know Derek Hale except as that guy in the leather jacket who didn’t just walk down the hall, he _prowled_. With murder eyebrows. No way was Stiles going to buddy up to that guy.

Then, about a month into their sophomore year, Scott’s mom gave Scott a motorcycle for his sixteenth birthday. An honest-to-god, lime green, sexy-ass motorcycle.

Well, more like a dirt bike, but still.

When Scott put on the helmet and his new brown leather jacket (his other birthday present) to take the bike for a spin around the block, he didn't even look like a high school kid anymore. He looked like some kind of stunt double or secret agent. He looked like the guy who comes bursting in at the last minute in a hail of bullets to save the day and get the girl. He looked _epic_.

In other words, Stiles suspected Scott's popularity at school was about to skyrocket.

(On _Stiles'_ birthday, all he got was a handful of gift cards (admittedly awesome gift cards to the comic book store, but still), a cake, and a bar of handmade soap sent long-distance from his babcia in Poland. Stiles tried not to be too jealous.)

He hadn't even thought about what the bike meant for their routine until it was Monday morning and Stiles was standing groggily at the corner, waiting for the bus.

The bus that, for the first time in Stiles' entire high school life, wasn't going to have Scott on it.

Stiles thought fleetingly about running back inside and calling Scott to come pick him up—he could totally ride on the back of Scott's bike; he was secure in his masculinity—but then the bus was pulling up and it was too late.

Stiles' luck didn't really improve from there. His house was pretty much last on the route—okay, third-to-last, but eh, semantics—and that morning, as usual, the bus was already packed, every seat either full or reserved with a bag.

Except for the seat in the very next-to-last row. The seat next to Derek Hale. And there was definitely a _reason_ that one was still vacant. The reason being that Derek Hale was terrifying. Stiles still remembered that one time freshman year he’d accidentally made eye contact with Derek on his way to his locker. Derek had stared intensely back, jaw clenching, looking like he wanted to _eat_ him, and Stiles had honestly seen his life flash before his eyes.

When Stiles took the seat beside him on the bus, though, all Derek did was pointedly adjust his earbuds in his ears, jam his hands deep into the pockets of his leather jacket, and shift away from him to face the window.

“Hey,” Stiles said tentatively, but Derek gave no sign of hearing him. Stiles shrugged and gave up.

It’d been a tense ride up until the moment someone kicked the back of Derek’s seat, jolting him forward just enough for the end of his earbud cord to fall out of his pocket, not connected to anything. For a long few seconds, he and Stiles had both just stared at it as Derek’s face turned slowly red.

Then Stiles had grinned and said, “Mm, silence, that's my favorite song, too.” When Derek snorted and his shoulders relaxed minutely, Stiles pulled his iPod out of his backpack and said, “Wanna listen to some actual music with me?”

Derek had studied him for a moment, wary, and then he’d taken the proffered earbud from Stiles’ hand. Victory.

The next day, Stiles sat down beside Derek on purpose even though there were three empty seats nearer to the front of the bus. Derek even looked vaguely happy—or at least non-murderous—to see him.

Over the next few months, Stiles figured out that that was just how Derek looked a lot of the time. It didn’t mean he was plotting Stiles’ murder, or anyone else’s (presumably). Stiles also started to get a pretty good feel for Derek’s music tastes. A lot of rock and even a little bit of pop, plus a surprising amount of classical stuff that Stiles still has a hard time telling apart.

By now, almost a year later, Stiles knows a lot of things about Derek. Well, still not that much, but it’s a lot considering that it’s _Derek_ and the guy’s practically allergic to personal questions.

He knows, for example, that Derek is weirded out by fruit on pizza. He's president of the Spanish Club. He has four sisters and expertly avoids all of them in the school hallways. He reads a ton of mass-market sci-fi paperbacks. All of his notebooks have dramatic pictures of wolves on the covers.

Stiles is pretty sure he wears the same three or four plain black T-shirts all the time. He definitely always wears the same leather jacket, like maybe if he took it off he’d get separation anxiety.

He gets a little freaked out when girls hit on him at the bus stop in the afternoons, and he relaxes when Stiles meanders over and leans an arm on Derek’s shoulder and rambles at them until they reluctantly disperse.

And if Stiles finger-drums and bobs his head while listening to a really good song on the bus, Derek will roll his eyes and mutter, “I don’t know you,” but he’ll smile just a little, just at the corners of his mouth. Stiles counts that as a very good sign. Most people, he’s discovered, seem to think Stiles is embarrassing or weird, and not in a good way.

Derek, meanwhile, probably knows more about Stiles at this point than he ever wanted to, because Stiles talks all the time. About Scott, about his dad, about what an unfair dick Mr. Harris is and how creepy Matt from the school newspaper is around Scott's girlfriend, about weird things he's been reading on Wikipedia lately and what he had for lunch and the massive crush he used to have on Lydia... The list is never-ending. Derek doesn't seem to mind, though.

They still haven’t really interacted much outside of their morning and afternoon commutes, but Stiles thinks they’re probably friends. They always sit together on the bus. They’d exchanged numbers somewhere back in September, and they text sometimes about stupid stuff. And if Stiles sees Derek across the cafeteria, eating with his friends (Isaac, Malia, and Boyd, who all dress like some kind of biker gang), or if they pass each other in the halls, Stiles shoots him a little nod and Derek nods back, all bro-like. It’s pretty cool.

Their bus ride this afternoon, though, is not cool. It’s kind of… really... awkward.

Usually they just hang out, shoulders knocking together occasionally, sharing Stiles’ iPod or chatting about the latest book Derek’s reading or whatever else is on their minds. It’s easy and fun and casual, one of the best parts of Stiles’ day. Today, though, in the aftermath of his conversation with Erica, Stiles has spent pretty much the entire afternoon sneakily scrutinizing random guys in his classes and asking himself if he’s attracted to them. More often than not, he’s had to conclude that… yeah. He sorta maybe is. Just a little bit.

It’s definitely more than his brain can handle right now.

Worst of all, he can't stop staring at Derek.

He always knew Derek was hot, everybody knows Derek is hot, but now it's like he's really _awake_ to it. He can feel it as a kind of heat low in his gut. He can't stop glancing at Derek's mouth, at the faint stubble on his jaw, at his hands as he fiddles with the latest paperback book in his lap. He’s got the sleeves of his jacket rolled up a bit because it’s been an unusually warm day for January, and Stiles is even distracted by the dark hair on Derek’s forearms. Stiles can't think of anything to say to him that's not “I want to lick you all over and hold your stupid hand.”

At one point Derek's elbow brushes Stiles’ accidentally and Stiles twitches with his whole body. Derek shoots him a funny look. “You're... acting kinda weird today.”

Stiles babbles something about a stomachache and scrambles off the bus as soon as it stops in front of his house. He can feel Derek’s curious eyes on his back all the way to his front door.

*

Stiles spends roughly the next hour on Facebook, looking at every photo of Derek he can scrounge up.

Derek doesn’t actually _have_ a Facebook account; he’s weirdly private like that. But he does show up in a few of Stiles’ selfies.

Stiles pauses on one he particularly likes where Derek’s fallen asleep with his head on Stiles’ shoulder. Normally Derek’s a morning person, up at 6 a.m. sharp for dawn workouts in his basement before school, but that day he’d been up all night the night before, cramming for a Spanish test, and he’d nodded off almost as soon as he sat down on the bus. Stiles had been sorely tempted to prank him, maybe draw something on the back of Derek’s hand in Sharpie. But then he’d really taken it all in, the shadows under Derek’s eyes and how fucking _peaceful_ he looked, and he couldn’t do it. He’d taken a quick selfie instead, just something to tease Derek with later, and then he’d pulled out some reading for class and let Derek sleep.

Stiles stares at Derek’s face in the photo, the lush sweep of his eyelashes and his slightly parted mouth, and this giddy, warmly _fond_ butterflies feeling starts up under his breastbone, which—

No. No no no no no. Stiles _knows_ what that means, okay, and it’s nothing good.

Stiles ends up doing what he always does in the middle of a freak-out, which is call Scott.

“You should come over,” Scott interrupts before Stiles can get more than two words out. Scott can read him like no one else, even over the phone. There’s a reason kids at school used to accuse them of being telepathic twins. “I’ve got Mario Kart and Red Bull.”

So Stiles comes over. The bike ride takes about ten minutes. By the time he gets to Scott’s door, he’s slightly calmer, but then a stray thought about Derek’s dumb spiky hair and incredible jawline flits through his head and he’s right back to nearly hyperventilating.

When Scott opens the door, he takes one look at Stiles and says, “On second thought, I’m not giving you any Red Bull. I think you would explode. You need decaf tea.”

“Ugh,” Stiles groans, even though Scott is probably right.

For the next two hours, Stiles doesn’t say anything about anything. They clomp up to Scott’s room, Scott puts on some bone-jarringly loud music, and they play a few rounds of blissfully mind-numbing Mario Kart like that, sitting on the floor leaning back against Scott’s bed while Stiles dutifully sips his decaf tea. Occasionally Scott passes him some Doritos.

Finally Stiles gets up to use the bathroom, and Scott ducks downstairs for a glass of water. When they get back, Stiles flops down bonelessly on Scott’s bed and groans, “So I think I’m probably bisexual and in the middle of developing an unfortunate man-crush on Derek.”

“Okay,” Scott says. He doesn’t even blink.

Stiles sits up again. “Wait—you _knew_? How did you know? I didn’t even know!”

Scott shrugs, looking shifty. “Just a hunch.”

“About the Derek thing, or the bisexual thing?”

“Well…” Scott thinks a minute. “Both? I mean, you do talk about Derek a _lot_ , and he seems like kind of your type.”

“My _type_.”

Scott shifts uncomfortably. “That’s just a hunch, too. I’ve seen all those men’s fitness magazines in your bathroom, and I know you have zero interest in exercise—”

“Okay, okay,” Stiles waves him off. “I get it.” So maybe this whole bisexual thing shouldn’t have come as quite the surprise that it did. He’d convinced himself he liked those magazines just for the aesthetic, or just for the inspiration they gave him to do the occasional push-up, but… maybe not. Whatever. “Anyway, you should’ve _seen_ me today with Derek, Scott. I was totally jumpy and weird, and I’m pretty sure at one point I was just staring at his arm muscles” (Scott makes a face) “and he might’ve _noticed_ I was staring at his arm muscles? I’m not sure. Either way, it was bad. I physically _cannot_ hide my feelings. Ever. What am I going to do?”

“Just tell him how you feel?” Scott suggests, and it’s not even a joke. He’s _serious_.

Stiles laughs so hard he collapses backwards on the bed. “Yeah. Right,” he wheezes finally. “Just tell him! Because that’s not going to completely freak him out or anything. Or freak _me_ out.”

Scott shrugs and crunches on a Dorito. “Well, there’s always the option of _not_ talking about it, but then you’ll never know if he likes you back.”

Typical Scott, making everything sound all frustratingly logical and easy. “Listen, talking about feelings might’ve worked out for you and Allison, I mean, you just walked up to her and she was like, ‘Let’s make out!’ But—”

“Oversimplification!” Scott objects.

“Not much of one. Anyway, my point stands. It worked for you, but have you _seen_ Derek? I’m pretty sure if he saw an emotion, he would just, like, _run_. Just flat-out run away in the opposite direction.”

Scott shrugs. “Okay, then don’t say anything.”

“Ugh,” Stiles says. “I hate having to actually make decisions. Life is hard.”

Scott rolls his eyes (probably because somewhere in there he actually became a responsible semi-adult person with a girlfriend and an internship and a dirt-bike and now makes _at least_ 20 responsible decisions a day, ugh). He gives Stiles a big best-bro/congrats-on-coming-out hug anyway.

*

On Monday morning, Derek is in the middle of telling Stiles about his little sister Cora's latest hair-dyeing fiasco over the weekend ("Her head looks like an eggplant") when Stiles abruptly interrupts, "Did you know bisexuality is a thing?"

He immediately bites his lip. He didn’t mean to say that. It’s just, he kind of hasn’t been able to think about much else lately.

Derek blinks at him, probably trying to figure out what that has to do with anything. "That's like asking me if I know the sky is blue or fried Oreos are disgusting."

"I'm going to take that as a yes, then. Also, you're wrong about the Oreos. Whoever invented that shit was a genius." Stiles huffs. "Goddammit, how did everyone but me already know this?"

"I don't know," Derek concedes, " _you're_ usually the one telling _me_ about all this stuff no one's ever heard of, like the fried Oreos."

Stiles falls into a contemplative silence.

Derek volunteers hesitantly, "I'm bi. Just... if you were wondering."

“Really? That’s interesting,” Stiles says. What he really wants to say is more along the lines of, _HOLY FUCK, miracles are real_ , but he can play it cool. He can. Really. “Me too, as it turns out.” He glances around the bus, eyes landing on Danny Mahealani a few rows up. “So... do you think Danny is hot?”

Derek follows Stiles’ line of sight, looking confused. “Sure, I guess, but he’s not really my type.”

And _that’s_ interesting. “Who is your type?”

“Kermit the Frog,” Derek snarks.

Stiles rolls his eyes. “Okay, I get it, you don’t want to tell me. I’ll just wonder about it forever now.”

“Who’s your type, then?” Derek asks after a minute. He’s slouched down in his seat, looking down at his hands, feigning casual and relaxed, but somehow Stiles thinks he’s really not. “Danny?”

Stiles shoves him a little, snorting. “You can’t just be like,” he pitches his voice as deep as it’ll go, like Batman, “ ‘No, Stiles, I’m not going to tell you my type,’ and then turn right around and ask me for mine. No fair.”

“Just wondering,” Derek shrugs. He picks his book up again, like he didn’t really care that much either way.

Stiles stares at him a minute, waiting for… something, he doesn’t know what. But Derek doesn’t give anything away. Finally Stiles huffs and gives up, digging out his iPod.

At least now he knows he has _some_ chance with Derek, even if it is, admittedly, slim.

*

“Do you want to hang out today?” Derek asks him out of the blue on the bus the next afternoon, almost as soon as Stiles sits down.

“What, like a—” _date_ , Stiles almost says. He bites his tongue at the last second. “—a, um, studying together kind of thing?”

Derek kicks distractedly at the back of the next seat, not looking at him. “Studying. Talking. Whatever.”

Stiles’ mind immediately starts going places with that _Whatever_. Places that are probably not appropriate for a school bus at 3 in the afternoon. “ _YES_ ,” he says, probably too eagerly, but it gets Derek to smile and relax his shoulders, so: win. “My house?”

Derek nods.

*

It’s not until Stiles has already kicked the front door shut behind him and yelled out a, “Yo, Dad, I’m home!” that he remembers it’s a Wednesday and his dad is definitely still at the station. “Oops, I forgot he’s at work,” he adds for Derek’s benefit.

Derek looks marginally less tense at that, but he still somehow manages to convey the impression that he’s ready to bolt at any second. Stiles has to remind himself that this was Derek’s idea in the first place. He _wants_ to be here.

“So…” Stiles thinks a second. “Maybe you wanna, um, take off your shoes? Or hang up your jacket?”

“Okay,” Derek says. He’s wearing black socks with fluffy little grey wolves on them, and under his jacket, his black shirt has white sleeves. Have his black shirts always had white sleeves this whole time and Stiles just didn’t know it because he’s never seen Derek jacketless before? His mind is a little bit blown, to be honest.

Derek stands there with his hands hanging at his sides—no jacket pockets to shove them in now, Stiles supposes—and looks at Stiles like he’s just waiting for Stiles to tell him what to do.

Stiles panics a little and goes with the first thing that pops into his head. “Do you want some hot pockets? I can make hot pockets. I can make so many hot pockets. I’m pretty sure that’s, like, fifty percent of what’s in the freezer right now.”

“I’ve never eaten a hot pocket,” Derek says, and, well, that settles it.

“Okay, c’mon,” Stiles tugs him by the sleeve into the kitchen. “You’re about to eat one now.”

*

They end up spreading their books out all over the kitchen table and semi-studying, semi-distracting each other with random tangents and foot-kicking under the table. Stiles wimps out about fifteen different times on talking about his feelings. They eat a lot of hot pockets. Derek looks like he’s having a religious experience every time he bites into one, which leaves Stiles fighting off a boner under the table.

About an hour and a half into their study session, Derek’s phone starts to buzz with an alarm. He taps at it a couple times and says, “I guess I should head out.” He even looks a little disappointed about it, which makes something warm uncurl in Stiles’ chest. “I promised my mom I’d be home by six for dinner.”

“That’s surprisingly responsible of you,” Stiles says. He hasn’t seen Derek text anyone the entire time he’s been here. Does that mean Derek planned this? Told his mom this morning that he was probably going over to Stiles’ house this afternoon and that’s why he wouldn’t be home until six? Stiles isn’t sure what to do with this information.

At the front door, Derek shoves his feet into his sneakers and shrugs on his jacket while Stiles flails for something, anything, to say. Maybe he should just tell Derek now, he thinks wildly, and then if Derek is homicidally mad about it, Stiles can just shove him out the door and go be mortified alone in the privacy of his room for the rest of the night.

He inches a little closer, trying to be subtle about it. Derek pauses, one hand on the door, to look at him. Probably because the amount of personal space Stiles is invading right now is not exactly within “just bros” territory.

“Um…” Stiles licks his lips. His eyes drop to Derek’s mouth and he sways in, just a little. At the last second, though, he chickens out at the way Derek is just _staring_ at him and sways back out again. Derek’s eyes are wide and shocked, like Stiles just threatened to murder him. In any other situation, Stiles would probably find it comical, but… well.

Stiles laughs awkwardly and scratches the back of his head. "So is that a new cologne, or...?"

“Um,” Derek says, shoulders tense. “No.” He sticks his hands in his pockets. “I’ve gotta—go.”

“Yeah.” Stiles hastily takes a step back. “Right. Of course. See you tomorrow.”

As soon as Derek’s out the door, Stiles slumps back against it and groans. He just _knows_ this is going to be one of those embarrassing moments that keep him up at 2 a.m. He’s pretty sure it’s not even possible to be more awkward than almost-kissing and then not-kissing Derek Hale while Derek just stands there like a fucking guard at Buckingham Palace and doesn’t try to almost-kiss him back.

Maybe Stiles can just walk to school tomorrow and never have to see Derek again.

*****

By the next morning, he’s calmed down about it a little bit, at least enough to get on the bus when it pulls up to his stop.

Stiles decides to spend the ride studiously working on his history project instead of pestering Derek or otherwise goofing off. It’s a lot easier than trying to look Derek in the eye. Also, since Kira actually has some concept of time management, unlike Stiles, he’s actually been working on this project well in advance instead of doing his usual and putting it off until the night before, and he was too preoccupied last night with replaying the mortifying almost-kiss in his head a bajillion times to work on it like he’d planned.

God, he _hates_ being responsible. It’s so inefficient. The notes he’s making are practically unreadable because the movement of the bus makes his handwriting all shaky, and his brain feels like mush because it’s not even 8 in the morning yet, and Derek is sitting there being all distracting just by existing, and— and—

“I can’t concentrate for shit,” he decides aloud. He shoves all his useless notes back into his bookbag for good measure. He can sort them out later, in study hall, maybe.

Derek shoots him a questioning look and closes the book he was reading.

Stiles almost blurts it out then: “IT TURNS OUT YOU MAKE ME REALLY NERVOUS, WHY ARE YOU SO DORKY AND ATTRACTIVE, WHO ALLOWED THAT TO HAPPEN—” but then, thankfully, he remembers at the last second that he’s not telling Derek about that. Well. After what happened last night, Derek probably has some inkling, but Stiles isn’t going to dig himself further into any holes here.

So, since awkward crushes are out, Stiles goes with the next thing down on his mental list of Stressful Things.

“So on top of this huge history project, I’m taking my driver’s test in two days and I’m not going to pass. It’s not even like driving is that hard, I mean, the whole stick shift thing isn’t even a problem.” It’s a testament to his nerves that he doesn’t even make an innuendo there. “But parallel parking? I mean, I’m not even sure that should be _legal_. I’m going to do that one day and plow right into somebody’s car.”

“I could help,” Derek says tentatively.

Stiles thinks he’s joking at first, but Derek doesn’t laugh. “Oh. You’re serious? Dude, I didn’t even know you knew how to drive. I mean,” he can’t help but point out, “you’re a senior and you ride the bus.”

Derek glares at the ceiling. “I didn’t _always_ ride the bus.”

“Wait,” Stiles says gleefully, “do you have some kind of tragic backstory? A tragic bus-riding backstory?”

Derek huffs. “My parents got me a Camaro when I started high school…”

Stiles whistles, because _nice_. Also, it seems like the kind of car Derek would have. It’d match his leather jacket, anyway.

“...and then they took away the keys.”

“Bummer,” Stiles says.

“I just... I kept getting a lot of speeding tickets. My parents said if I kept driving that way, they were going to take away my keys and make me ride the bus.”

“And you kept driving that way,” Stiles surmises.

Derek shrugs.

"Oh. Okay. So let me get this straight. What you're saying here is that you drive so badly—no, so _atrociously_ —that your parents took away your car. And you want to teach _me_ how to drive?"

Derek scowls and stands up, because the bus has just pulled into the school parking lot. "Look, if you want to fail your test, then fine, go ahead, it was just an offer.”

And that's about when it clicks. Derek teaching him to parallel park. Derek Hale, in a car with Stiles, alone, teaching him to parallel park. Maybe putting his hand over Stiles’ on the gearshift… And no, that is not a metaphor, Stiles tells his brain firmly.

Stiles scrambles out of the bus after Derek, who's already walking off towards the school. "No, wait up, stop, halt, I'll do it! I mean, you can do it. You can teach me things!"

Derek turns around, walking backwards, smiling like he knew Stiles was going to say yes all along. "Okay. Meet me tomorrow night at seven in the parking lot behind In-N-Out."

Stiles wonders if (fantasizes that) anyone who just overheard that is going to think it was Derek asking him on a date.

Like that would ever actually happen.

*

The next day Stiles has study hall the last period of the day, which is basically a recipe for disaster. Or at least unproductivity. Especially when he knows he’s going to be hanging out with Derek tonight. Alone.

He’s alternating between texting Scott and playing Angry Birds on his phone, all the while trying to ignore the couple of guys behind him who’re whispering and snickering about something, when he hears them say Derek’s name. He sits up a little, listening.

“I hear Derek Hale fucked a teacher his freshman year,” one of them is saying. Stiles thinks his name is Matt something. Daehler, maybe. The creepy newspaper photographer guy.

His friend chimes in, “Who knows, with the way he looks he’s probably fucked half the school, and not just girls either—” and Stiles sees _red_.

"Shut up," he snaps, turning around in his seat, and the guys stop whispering abruptly to look at him. "Derek's not like that, and even if he is, who even cares—"

"Oh yeah?" the second guy smirks. "Derek's 'not like that'? You must know him pretty well, then, huh?"

"I know you're a fucking asshole," Stiles says.

The guy raises his eyebrows and whistles like Stiles has done a trick. The other one, Matt something, leans into Stiles' space like they're sharing a secret and says, "Tell me, since you know so much. Would it be more accurate to call Derek a slut or a—"

It turns out punching someone in the face hurts. Like, a _lot_.

Worth it, though.

*

Stiles doesn't get suspended, but the school does call his dad. It's not exactly a pleasant conversation. Stiles has gotten in trouble before, boy has he ever, but never for something like this. When he explains why he did it, though, his dad seems a little less disappointed.

"I hope he's worth it," his dad says finally.

"Oh, he is." Just thinking about Derek, and what those guys were saying about Derek, makes a surge of protectiveness rush through him all over again. He’d punch a lot of Matt Daehlers for Derek Hale.

“Good,” his dad says.

On the bus, Stiles doesn't say anything about it to Derek, but it's pretty hard to hide. Everyone on the bus is whispering about it. About Stiles. It takes less than a minute after Stiles sits down before the girl who always sits in front of them twists around to lean over the back of the seat and say, "Hey, you’re Stilinski, right? Is it true you punched Matt Daehler to defend Derek's honor?"

Great. Stiles can _feel_ himself flushing, just like he can feel the weight of Derek's gaze landing on him, curious.

"Yeah," someone else calls from across the aisle before Stiles can answer. "I saw it. Stiles hit him so hard he fell out of his desk. He's got a black eye and everything."

"Cool," the girl says, popping her gum. Maybe she registers the _I don't want to talk about it_ look on Stiles' face, or maybe she just gets bored, but she thankfully turns back around in her seat.

Derek reaches out to turn over Stiles' hand, looking at where his knuckles are darkening to an angry red. "Defending my honor?" he asks softly.

Stiles shrugs and belatedly pulls his sleeve down over his hand. "Yeah, I guess. That sounds so corny, though."

"What did they say?"

"Nothing," Stiles tries. "Stupid stuff. I just got carried away."

"If it involved Matt Daehler, then it probably wasn't nothing. He was mean to Cora a few weeks ago, tried to kiss her when she didn't want it, and I called him out on it in front of a whole crowd of people. I really embarrassed him. He hates me."

Stiles shrugs.

"Stiles," Derek says, low.

He just keeps staring at him, waiting, and finally Stiles sighs. " _Fine_. They were saying you, um, slept around. And that you fooled around with a teacher once. But I know it's not tr—"

"It is," Derek cuts in. He looks down at his shoes. Stiles is too shocked to say anything. "At least the part about the teacher. Not the... sleeping around in general." He bites his lip. "You know when I said my parents took away my car for speeding tickets?"

"Yeah."

"I lied.”

“Okay,” Stiles says cautiously.

“It was because of the thing with the teacher," Derek clarifies.

Stiles thinks about that, doing the calculations in his head, and what he thinks is that that's _stupidly_ unfair. "Wait, if that's true then she had to have been an adult, right? And you were what, fourteen?"

"Fifteen."

"So how is that your fault? She's the one who—"

"I know. It wasn't a punishment. My parents did it to protect me. They don't blame me at all, but what I did— what I almost got myself into—"

"What she almost got you into, you mean."

"I guess." Derek looks uncomfortable. "It was more than just inappropriate. I can't tell you the reason, but it was... dangerous. For my whole family. If my sister hadn't caught me and told someone, something bad could've happened. _Would've_ happened."

Okay, so _that's_ not intensely intriguing or anything. But Stiles decides not to push it for now. Derek's already telling him more than Stiles ever expected. He says instead, "But it's over now, right? She's gone? Whatever it was, it didn't happen. Crisis averted. So..."

"So my parents just want to make sure it doesn't happen again."

Stiles doesn't know what to say to that. He's not sure he really can say anything to that, not when he doesn't know the whole story. So he just shrugs and says, "That's intense, man. But on the plus side, it means you started sitting with me. I can't complain about that."

Derek smiles at him, and Stiles’ stomach flip-flops giddily. "Yeah. Me neither."

A few minutes later the bus pulls up at Stiles’ stop.

“See you in a few hours,” Derek says as Stiles swings his backpack onto his shoulder. “And, um. Thanks. For, you know.” He nods at Stiles’ bruised hand.

“Oh. Sure.” Stiles shoots him a dorky salute. “Anytime.”

*

So the thing is, Stiles has never actually been on a date. Not that this is a date, but… he still doesn’t want to wear just any old t-shirt. He wants to look attractive and available and kissable and stuff.

He’s not sure anything in his closet really suitably conveys that, though, so in the end he just goes with one of his favorite t-shirts. It’s navy with a big red-white-and-blue target on the front. Subliminal messaging and all that.

He leaves a small mountain of discarded shirts wadded up inside-out on his bed. Future!Stiles can deal with that.

Just to be sure, he sends a snapchat selfie of him wearing the target shirt to Erica. She sends him back a volley of innuendos, which is basically her way of telling him it looks good.

 _wait, why do you want to know?_ she texts him a minute later. _also, did you really punch matt daehler??_

Sensing an impending storm of texts, Stiles turns off his phone. He can tell her about the Matt thing tomorrow. And he’ll tell her about Derek, maybe, but only if it goes well. If it doesn’t, then he’d rather keep that treasure trove of embarrassment to himself, thank you very much.

“Cleaning up in your room for once?” his dad asks a while later, eyeing the clothing mountain, when he pokes his head in to say goodbye. He’s got a shift tonight at the station. He doesn’t know about the driving lesson. Stiles kind of conveniently forgot to mention it during dinner. Hanging out alone, with _Derek_ , for only the _second time ever_ , is just about the last place Stiles wants adult supervision, and with his learner’s permit he’s not technically supposed to be driving anywhere on his own, not even two blocks over to In-N-Out.

Stiles looks up from where he’s been pretending to be absorbed in reading _The Scarlet Letter_ ever since he heard his dad coming up the stairs. “Yep. You know me, just being my usual studious and fastidious, law-abiding self.”

His dad narrows his eyes at that—he’s not a cop for nothing—and drums his fingers thoughtfully on his thigh.

Stiles makes himself hold the eye contact, trying not to squirm.

His dad sighs. “You know what, I don’t even wanna know.”

“Probably wise,” Stiles agrees. “Have fun catching bad guys and stuff.”

“Have fun reading…” His dad squints. “ _The Scarlet Letter_. Okay, I really don’t want to know. I’m heading out.”

Stiles waits on the edge of his seat, still clutching the book, until he hears the engine of his dad’s cruiser rumble to life outside. Then he scrambles down the stairs into the garage. He’s a little clumsy backing the Jeep down the driveway, but he doesn’t hit anything, that’s the important thing, and then he’s off.

*

In-N-Out is objectively a pretty good place to practice driving because it shares a parking lot with the largely abandoned mall behind it, meaning lots of empty space. It’s also one of those creepy, deserted places Stiles normally wouldn’t go near even in the daytime, all cracked asphalt and broken beer bottle glass and graffiti.

It doesn’t seem to be phasing Derek, who’s already loitering near the back wall of the mall in an insouciant lean with his hands in his jacket pockets, waiting for him. Stiles puts his Jeep in park near the rectangle of orange traffic cones Derek’s set up under the only working streetlamp and hops out.

“Hey,” he says, all casual. “Where’d you get the cones?”

Derek is suspiciously silent, which Stiles takes to mean he probably stole them.

“Never mind. Um…”

Derek is dressed a lot nicer than his usual. He’s definitely changed clothes since that afternoon on the bus. The shirt he’s got on under his leather jacket is soft cotton dyed a delicate shade of grey, not his usual black, and he's styled his hair and smells faintly like cologne, which is... interesting. Also, his jeans look a lot tighter than Stiles remembers from the bus. Holy thigh muscles.

Stiles’ eyes finally drift back up to Derek’s face, only to find Derek watching him look, his eyebrows raised like, _You done?_

“Oh, shut up,” Stiles mutters. He kind of expects Derek to be mad, but instead he just smirks a little, pushes off from the wall, and heads around to the passenger side of Stiles’ Jeep without threatening him even a little bit. Okay. Maybe he didn’t realize what Stiles was doing? Maybe he thought Stiles just zoned out while just happening to look in Derek’s general direction or something.

Stiles shrugs it off and swings himself up into the Jeep, trying not to wince too obviously when it makes his bruised hand twinge.

Derek is, objectively, a pretty shitty driving instructor. He scowls a lot and growls a pretty much constant stream of, “No, your OTHER left, turn faster, no, stop, stop backing up, what are you doing—” and it shouldn’t be working for him, it should be making Stiles freeze up, but instead the pressure hones his focus until he’s sliding the Jeep back smoothly into the spot, twisting the wheel just so, and straightening out into a goddamn perfect parking job. Stiles _dares_ anyone else in the universe to do a better parking job than that. Ha.

“That was pretty decent,” Derek allows. “Do it again.”

Stiles groans.

*

All in all, Derek makes him do it another five times before he’s satisfied that Stiles has got it down. It was going to be just four more times, but on the last go-round Stiles forgot to put on his turn signal and Derek made him start over.

When Stiles finally does it right the last time, he's so elated that he puts the car in park and leaps out to do a cartwheel and a stupid dance. He’s gonna _ace_ this test.

He turns around and Derek has climbed out, too, and is just leaning against the Jeep, watching him, smiling all soft and warm, and _wow_ , that does things to Stiles.

Stiles drifts closer. “I did it,” he says, a little breathless, because it seems like the kind of moment for saying something.

“Yeah,” Derek says. He’s still just _looking_ at Stiles. It’s weird. Friends definitely don’t just _stare_ at each other like this, all unblinking intensity, but Stiles can’t make himself look away.

Derek has finally taken his hands out of his pockets. His gaze is so dark and steady, unreadable, and Stiles can feel his heart going 90 mph in his chest, and they’re standing pretty close for just friends, but he really, really doesn’t want a repeat of what happened last time—

“Are we gonna kiss right now?” Stiles blurts, and then immediately wants to brain himself with the nearest traffic cone. “Fuck, I mean, I don’t know what I mean, just, um, I’m kind of winging this. You can ignore that, um...”

“Okay,” Derek says.

“Okay what? Okay as in, you’re going to pretend I didn’t just—”

In one smooth movement, Derek pushes off from the Jeep and into his space, cups his jaw and kisses him. Just a quick tilting of his head and darting in for a light little press of lips, like a question. He pulls back, but not that far. His thumb strokes a little at the hinge of Stiles’ jaw. His hand is really warm and a little sweaty, like maybe he’s just as nervous as Stiles.

“Okay?” he says, soft.

“That better be rhetorical,” Stiles says, and then they’re making out for real, Stiles caging Derek back against his Jeep and Derek fucking _letting_ him, clutching at Stiles’ hip to draw him closer.

Stiles has pictured this moment a lot over the last few days, how it’d feel to have Derek’s hands on him, Derek’s _mouth_ on him, but nothing comes close to the reality. It’s intimate and easy, falling into a rhythm together, opening his mouth under Derek’s and letting him in, letting him have whatever he wants. Stiles never wants to stop kissing him.

Derek, as it turns out, is really handsy, and very into biting. He keeps breaking off to nuzzle down Stiles' neck or suck at his earlobe, his jaw, the join of his neck and shoulder, before returning hungrily to his mouth. By the time they stop, Derek pulling away only far enough to rest his forehead on Stiles' and pant hotly against his skin, Stiles is half-hard in his pants and has to discreetly reach down to readjust himself. Not discreetly enough, if the way Derek's hands flex on Stiles' waist is any indication.

“I wanted to kiss you so much when you were at my house the other night,” Stiles admits. It feels like a talking kind of moment.

“I know.”

“Well, why didn’t you fucking say something, then?”

Derek shrugs. “I wimped out. I wasn’t expecting you to do anything.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.” Derek rubs his hand on Stiles’ back under his shirt, warm on Stiles’ skin, fingertips tracing Stiles’ spine. Stiles shivers. “Can I kiss you some more?”

“Fuck yes,” Stiles says.

*

Eventually Derek starts pulling back, leaving a trail of light little kisses along Stiles’ jaw. His hand trails down to tangle with Stiles’, and he brings it up to the light, thumb brushing gently over the bruising. “Does it hurt?”

“It’s okay,” Stiles says. It does hurt, but not that much, and he doesn’t want Derek to let go.

“No one’s ever done something like that for me before,” Derek says quietly. He ducks down and presses his lips gently to the worst of the bruising, and the gesture’s so cheesy and unexpected and _sweet_ that Stiles forgets to breathe for a second.

“I—” Stiles starts, not even sure what the next thing out of his mouth is going to be, only to get cut off by Derek’s phone going off in his pocket, blasting—

“‘Sunglasses at Night,’ really?” Stiles smirks, and Derek flips him off casually before turning away to answer it. He doesn’t let go of Stiles’ hand.

“That was my dad. I’ve gotta go,” Derek says when he hangs up. He looks a little embarrassed. “My parents get antsy if I’m out too late on my own.”

“Nah,” Stiles waves a hand, “I get it.” It occurs to him then that Derek hasn't brought a car. "Do you need a ride?"

Derek shakes his head and gestures vaguely behind him, where, Stiles now notices, there's a bicycle leaning against the wall in the shadows.

"Okay, well, thanks for the driving help and the, um..." Stiles rubs absently at his neck, wondering if he has a hickey there. Derek watches him avidly. "The kissing. It was nice."

Derek smiles and leans into Stiles’ space, kissing him one last time, lingering.

“Okay, now I really have to go,” he says after a minute, backing away. “See you tomorrow, Stiles.”

“Yeah,” Stiles says. He slumps back against the Jeep. That _kiss_ , god. “See you.”

*

“I kissed DEREK FUCKING HALE and it was AWESOME,” Stiles shouts as soon as he gets home, because it’s the kind of thing that just needs shouting out.

The empty house, predictably, doesn’t respond.

Stiles leaves Scott a long, victorious voicemail about it instead. Then he leaves Erica one, too, just for good measure.

*

The next morning dawns drizzly and grey, and Stiles is newly plagued with doubt.

He gets on the bus not knowing quite what to expect. Is Derek going to ignore him? Glare him down? Go for Round Two of whatever it was they were doing last night?

Turns out, none of the above. He just looks up from the book he’s reading and nods hello at Stiles like always. They don’t say anything, but Derek holds his hand, which is pretty awesome. He lets it go when they stand up to get off the bus, which is a bit disappointing, but… understandable. Stiles doesn’t know if Derek is even out at school. Probably not, considering he’s one of the most private people Stiles has ever met.

Stiles supposes he isn’t out, either, come to think of it. Not that he’s tried to hide it or anything. He doesn’t think anyone would really care either way. He knows Danny is gay, and as far as Stiles has seen, no one bothers him about it. Just the opposite—he’s always been several leagues more popular than Stiles or anyone else Stiles associates with.

And his dad… As far as Stiles knows, he’d be fine with the whole liking-guys thing. He has one of those Equality stickers stuck to his desk at the station, anyway. The liking-Derek-in-particular thing is another question. Derek doesn’t exactly look all that friendly or approachable, but it’s not like he’s a criminal or Edward Cullen levels of creepy or undead or anything. Stiles thinks he’d probably be okay with it.

*

He and Kira give their presentation in history, and Stiles is pretty sure it’s the first time all day he’s stopped thinking about Derek for more than a few seconds.

At lunch he kinda wants to go over and sit with Derek, but would that be weird? He doesn’t want to freak Derek out or seem clingy or anything. Where do they even stand now? Hell, before last night Stiles wasn’t entirely sure they were even _friends_. What if all Derek wants is to fool around? Maybe that’s better than nothing, but it’s still not quite what Stiles wants.

Then again, what if Derek doesn’t even want to fool around with him at all?

Probably better not to assume anything. Stiles still remembers that one time he spent like a month thinking Derek was dating Malia until Derek happened to mention one day on the bus that they were cousins. Scott still makes fun of him for that sometimes.

When he gets to his usual table, Erica practically tackles him and shoves a congrats-on-the-kissing cupcake at him while Scott and Allison look on, laughing.

Over Erica’s shoulder, he can see Derek sitting there like always with his friends. He hasn’t looked over at Stiles once. It’s not like Stiles usually catches Derek gazing adoringly at him across the cafeteria or anything, but, well, he’d kind of hoped _something_ would change.

“Okay, it is pretty awesome, but keep your voices down,” Stiles says. “I don’t know if he would want anybody to know.”

Scott sees this as a slight to Stiles’ honor or whatever. “You shouldn’t have to be anyone’s secret, Stiles,” he says seriously.

Erica’s predictably less tactful. “If it were me, I’d march over there right now and straddle him and see what happens.”

Allison snorts.

Stiles chops his hand through the air. “Okay, no one is straddling anyone, okay? I’ll ask him about it like a normal person.”

And he will, he’s not lying, it’s just… He has to work up to it. He doesn’t want to mess this up.

Erica picks up his hand from where it’s resting on the table, inspecting the damage. It’s deepened from angry red to purplish overnight. “Damn, Stilinski, this makes you look so badass.”

Stiles grins. “I always look badass.”

“Hell yeah you do, bro,” Scott says, loyal as always, while Erica doubles over laughing.

*

That afternoon’s bus ride is kind of weird, but… a good weird. It’s absolutely _pouring_ rain on the ride home, and Stiles groans because he forgot his umbrella. He’s always forgetting his umbrella. It’s one of the many things he’s always forgetting—pens, gym clothes, textbooks, even one memorable time his shoes. (He got on the bus in his socks and didn’t notice until halfway to school. Scott had to lend him his gym shoes.)

Usually Derek reacts to Stiles forgetting his umbrella by snorting and saying, “Sucks to be you, then,” and carrying on with whatever book he’s reading. Today, though, he strips off his beloved leather jacket and says, "Here," and drapes it over Stiles' shoulders, his knuckles brushing the bare nape of Stiles' neck.

Stiles is pretty sure his mouth is hanging open in shock.

Derek flushes and mutters, “Shut up,” and spends the whole rest of the ride with his nose buried in his book.

When Stiles brings the jacket back on Monday, Derek keeps subtly smelling it.

“So guess what,” Stiles finally says, and Derek guiltily unburies his nose from his jacket collar to say, “What?”

Stiles grins and fishes around in his backpack until he comes out with his brand new driver’s license. “Ta-da! I passed, thanks to you.”

Derek stares at it a weirdly long time. “It’s a good picture of you,” he says finally, thumb stroking over the photo. He doesn’t sound that enthused about it.

“Thanks,” Stiles says hesitantly. “Scott told me the DMV lights made me look like I was deathly ill and hadn’t slept in three days, so…”

Derek shakes his head and hands the card back. “No, it’s good.”

There’s a bit of an awkward silence. Stiles wonders if Derek would freak out if Stiles tried to hold his hand again.

They’re almost all the way to school before Derek speaks up. “If you can drive to school now, why are you still riding the bus?”

“Well, I won’t get an assigned parking spot until Wednesday.”

“Oh,” Derek says. “Right.” He brings the sleeve of his jacket up like he’s going to take another whiff before he seems to remember that Stiles is watching him. “I guess…” he starts, then just _stops_.

“You guess what?” Stiles says.

Derek swallows. “I guess you won’t have to hang out with me anymore now. If you won’t be on the bus anymore.”

“What? That’s stupid.” Stiles hesitates, then just comes out with it. “I was actually thinking, if you wanted, you could ride with me? I mean, I’d pick you up.” They can listen to their music as loud as they want without headphones and probably sleep in more since they won’t have to get up for the bus, and Stiles will still get to see him at least twice a day. It’ll be perfect.

“Okay. I’d like that,” Derek nods, but there’s obviously still something Stiles isn’t getting, if the way he’s chewing on his lower lip and frowning is any indication.

“What?” Stiles prods.

Derek shakes his head, looking away out the window.

Stiles glances around to make sure no one’s paying attention to them and then asks as quietly as he can, “Is this you getting weird about the kissing the other day?”

He hopes the answer is a resounding _no_. If Derek doesn’t want to kiss him again, that would seriously suck, not to mention mess with his burgeoning plans to ask Derek to prom soon.

Derek jerks his head around to look at him like he’s surprised. “Why would I get weird about it? I’ve had a crush on you for ages,” he says, all matter-of-fact, like that’s not incredibly exciting news. “You’re the one who’d probably get weird about it. I mean, you just figured out you liked guys like, last week, and ever since I kissed you you’ve been acting like nothing happened.”

Stiles gapes at all the _wrongness_ of that statement. “Me? How about we talk about how _you’ve_ been acting like nothing happened! And just because I’m new to the whole bisexuality thing doesn’t mean I’m not all in!”

Derek blinks at him, uncrossing his arms from his chest. “Really?”

“Duh. I _punched_ a guy for you, Derek. I’m into you. I’m _so_ into you.” Stiles sits bolt upright. “Wait, do you—are you saying you want us to be boyfriends? Why didn’t you say anything sooner?”

Derek ducks his head. “I didn’t want to scare you off,” he mumbles.

Stiles starts laughing, and Derek looks adorably confused. “No, it’s just… I was the one who didn’t want to scare _you_ off.”

That gets a smile out of Derek, small and genuine and pleased.

“So I guess this means you do want to be my boyfriend,” Stiles ventures, and Derek leans over him and kisses him right there on the bus in front of everybody.

Most people seem too zoned-out and sleep-deprived to notice anything going on around them, but a few people wolf-whistle. Stiles grins against Derek’s mouth, bringing his hand up to curl his fingers in the soft hair at the nape of Derek’s neck.

“Boyfriends would be good,” Derek says when he pulls back.

“I think you mean _awesome_ ,” Stiles corrects. “It’s an important distinction. I don’t intend to do anything with you that’s just plain _good_.”

“Oh really?” Derek says. He leans in again, nipping at Stiles’ bottom lip. “Well, so far I’d say you’re succeeding.”

“Glad you think so,” Stiles says, a little breathlessly. He can’t stop smiling. “I’ll try to keep up the good work.”

Derek smirks. “I have confidence in your abilities.”

They hold hands in front of everybody all the way from the bus to Stiles’ locker, and it’s definitely awesome.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~~For the people expressing interest in a sequel/ch.2... I honestly don't have any plans at this point to write one, but I'm not ruling it out entirely. I love high school AUs and I had a lot of fun with this one, so maybe sometime I'd write a little something else in this 'verse.~~
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> ~~So: no guarantees, but you're welcome to subscribe in case I do add to this fic, and you're welcome to leave me feedback on what kind of stuff you'd want to see in a second chapter. Thanks for caring :)~~
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> ~~I HAVE DECIDED TO WRITE A SEQUEL. Actually, I've already mostly written it. It should be up shortly.~~
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> IT IS UP.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Stiles and Derek have their first time. It doesn’t go exactly as planned.

It's Thursday afternoon, and what Stiles would _like_ to be doing is hanging out with Derek again. What he's _actually_ doing is sitting gloomily at a desk in Mr. Harris' classroom, serving the first of his three detentions for punching Matt Daehler last week.

Stiles stands by his earlier opinion that it was totally worth it.

Derek has been Stiles' boyfriend for three days. Three awesome days of sitting together every day at lunch, and texting each other at all hours, and sneaking off at all opportunities to make out. (Stiles has proudly accumulated a whole row of vivid hickeys along his collarbone, all carefully hidden under his hoodie. He has high hopes for accumulating a lot more in the near future.)

If this is what dating is like, then Stiles can see why everyone is so obsessed with it. He's also gained a new appreciation for why Scott almost failed two classes right after he and Allison first got together. The one upside of this detention is that it's getting Stiles to do some actual work for the first time all week. Up until now, he's just had a lot of... distractions.

At least Mr. Harris isn't making him scrub floors or clean toilets or anything like that. Small mercies. Instead, Stiles gets to spend the whole time putting the finishing touches on his English paper and trying not to feel too creeped out by Mr. Harris' watchful gaze from behind his desk. It's like he's just waiting for Stiles to so much as _breathe_ wrong so he can slap him with another detention. Stiles makes sure not to give him any ammunition. He even turns his phone off.

When he finally gets out, groaning a little because he's been sitting so long, it's almost 4:45. He has a bunch of missed texts from Scott, Allison, and Erica. They've been on a group chat, making plans to see a movie Stiles has already been to twice.

He's just finished deleting all the little notifications by the time he steps out into the bright sunlight of the parking lot. He looks up, squinting, and then stops.

Derek is standing—no, _leaning_ , like some kind of male model—against Stiles' Jeep. It looks like he's been there a while. He has on a pair of aviators that make him look super chill, like some kind of secret agent, and he's holding a book, shading the pages against the sun with one hand as he reads. When he glances up and sees Stiles, he waves.

Stiles grins and walks over.

When he gets close enough, he leans in and kisses Derek hello, because he can do that now, and he's planning to take advantage of it at every opportunity.

"Hi," Derek says when he pulls back.

"Hi. I thought you'd get the bus?"

Derek shrugs. "I thought about it, but I wanted to see you."

It's corny, but Stiles still gets a little thrill out of the words. He grins and takes a step back, gesturing down at himself theatrically. "Well, ta-da, now you've seen me."

Derek rolls his eyes, but fondly.

"So... You wanna come over?" Stiles offers, and Derek nods.

*

At the house, Stiles' dad (to Stiles' surprise) doesn't interrogate Derek even a little bit. Well. He says, "So you're the young man Stiles punched someone for," and Derek says, "Yes, sir," and his dad asks Derek all the usual parent small-talk questions, like what grade he's in and how he likes school and what his college plans are. But overall he's remarkably cool about it.

Still, Stiles has been waiting to get Derek alone for entirely too long. It feels like this conversation is going excruciatingly slowly.

"Okay, well, Derek and I are gonna go, um, _study_ in my room now," Stiles finally butts in, tugging on Derek's sleeve.

Stiles' dad agreeably sits back down at the table and picks up his newspaper again. "Alright," he says, and fixes them with a look. "Just leave the door open while you're _studying_ , and remember I have very good hearing."

"Oh my god, Dad," Stiles groans. He herds Derek up the stairs before his dad can say anything else embarrassing.

Derek doesn't say anything about it. Instead, he wanders around Stiles' room, taking it all in like he's browsing exhibits at a museum or something: the pile of CDs and print-outs and various cords on Stiles' desk, the framed photo of his mom on the dresser, the skateboarder sticker on the wall, the abstract painting Allison made for him as a birthday present...

He stops in front of Stiles' bookshelf, tilting his head to read the spines. "I have this one," he says after a minute, pointing at _The Werewolf of Paris_.

"Oh yeah?” Stiles is a little surprised. It’s not a book most people have heard of. Sure, it was a bestseller back in the 1930s when it came out, but Stiles isn’t sure it’s even in print anymore. “Did you like it?"

Derek wrinkles his nose. "It was a cool idea, but ultimately disappointing. I mean, at one point the werewolf ends up sucking his girlfriend’s blood to keep from shifting. I thought that was stupid. Werewolves aren’t _vampires_."

"Yeah, that was a little unexpected, but I thought it was kinda cool, in a gross way," Stiles says. "Anyway, I’ve been reading a lot of supernatural fiction lately. Pretty interesting stuff.”

“Yeah,” Derek agrees, “except they don’t usually get anything right.”

Stiles laughs. “How do they get it wrong? It’s all made up anyway.”

Derek winces, bewilderingly. “Right. I… um… I just meant they deviate from the traditional myths.”

Stiles studies him. For some reason he gets the feeling Derek is lying about something, or at least omitting, but he can’t think why anyone would want to lie about something as insignificant as an old book. Oh well. Maybe Stiles is just seeing things that aren’t there. It’s been a long day. He shrugs it off and says instead, “I dunno, I think that can be kind of cool. Making something new out of old ideas, you know?”

“Yeah,” Derek says, although he doesn’t look like he’s entirely convinced.

Stiles decides a change of subject is in order. “So... you have that Spanish vocab quiz tomorrow, right? Want me to quiz you?"

"Sure," Derek says, so they sit down facing each other on Stiles' bed, and Derek digs around in his backpack and pulls out a truly impressive stack of flash cards held together with a rubber band. There must be at least a hundred.

"Still want to do this?" Derek asks, amused.

Stiles shoots him a look and reaches out for the cards. He's not going to be intimidated _that_ easily. "I'm up for the challenge. Let's see what you got."

It's probably the first time all week they've been alone together and _not_ spent the whole time making out. Stiles is proud of himself. Unlike Erica seems to think, he _is_ capable of self-discipline. Sometimes.

Derek spends about half the time getting questions right, one after another without any apparent hesitation, and the other half of the time laughing at Stiles for butchering the pronunciation. Stiles has never taken Spanish; back in middle school when they had to choose a language track, he opted for Latin because it seemed like it'd be easier. Jury's still out on that one.

Stiles' dad checks in on them at one point and seems pleasantly surprised that they're actually studying instead of fooling around. Stiles shoots him a smug look and goes back to reading off the next card.

It's almost six when Stiles finally reaches the last card in the deck. Derek gets that one right, too.

"Whoa, I feel like I just learned so much Spanish," Stiles sighs, flopping back on his bed. "You wanna watch a movie?" He can’t see Derek from this position, but he can practically feel him warring with himself. He nudges Derek's leg with his bare foot. "C'mon, you deserve a break."

"Yeah, okay," Derek relents.

*

Five minutes into the movie, Stiles starts getting restless. He’s alone in his bedroom, _on his bed_ , with Derek Hale for the first time ever. He can’t be blamed.

He bumps his hand up against Derek's. Touches the sensitive inside of Derek's wrist, just lightly. Drags his fingertips up Derek's forearm, back and forth. Derek shivers a little and looks down at where Stiles is touching him.

Emboldened, Stiles slides his hand over to Derek's thigh. Derek is wearing his tight jeans again, the ones he wore to the driving lesson the other night.

Almost as soon as Stiles does it, Derek grabs his wrist and hisses, "What if your dad comes up here?"

"Relax," Stiles murmurs, "there's a creaky stair. I'll hear it in plenty of time if he does."

He twists around a little to brace himself on Derek's thigh and press a trail of light little kisses up Derek's neck to his ear. He's already discovered Derek has a thing about necks. Derek doesn't move, but sure enough, Stiles can hear his breathing get a little heavier. Ha.

He takes a risk and opens his mouth, pressing his teeth teasingly to the smooth skin just under the join of Derek's jaw. He's also discovered Derek has a thing about biting.

It works. Derek grunts, his hands flying up to Stiles' back, holding him there, and Stiles bites down a little more, satisfied that things are getting good.

The stair creaks.

"Crap," Stiles mutters, dropping back down to Derek's side. He drags his comforter over his lap a nanosecond before his dad appears in the doorway.

"How's the studying going?"

"We, uh, it was good," Stiles nods. He schools his features into something that hopefully looks appropriately innocent. "We're just watching a movie and not touching at all."

Stiles glances over at Derek and almost facepalms; Derek's eyes are wide and alarmed and fixed on Stiles' dad like a deer in the headlights.

His dad eyes them suspiciously and says, "I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that's true, because I have to leave for the station now."

“Okay," Stiles says neutrally, thinking, _Thank god thank god thank god_.

"Have fun and don't get up to anything," Stiles' dad says, and Stiles pretends to be affronted.

"Dude, relax," he says when his dad is gone. He jostles Derek's shoulder. "He's not going to shoot you."

"I wouldn't be so sure," Derek says darkly, but he does let some of the tension out of his shoulders.

Downstairs, Stiles can hear the garage door rumbling open and shut again. That's his cue. He kicks away the comforter and straddles Derek, settling comfortably down on his lap.

"Stiles, what—" Derek starts, and Stiles quiets him with a kiss, as deep and dirty as he can think to make it. It's a pretty good strategy. Derek groans and pushes Stiles down on the bed. Stiles blindly shoves his laptop out of the way and focuses on getting Derek out of his clothes.

He gets as far as tugging Derek's shirt over his head and tossing it somewhere before Derek gets impatient with that and goes back to kissing him, shifting them so they're lying together on their sides on the bed, pressed together from chest to knees in a delicious wall of heat.

They make out for a long time after that, luxurious and heated, until Stiles gets a little sidetracked by Derek's chest—the lean muscle, sure, but also how the skin there is silkily smooth. "Dude, do you shave your chest?"

Derek hunches his shoulders. "So what if I do? It looks better."

Stiles dissolves into snorting laughter. "Derek Hale _manscapes_. This is the greatest day of my life."

"Shut up," Derek grumbles. He tugs Stiles back up against him so he can get his mouth on Stiles’ neck some more, and Stiles agreeably tilts his head back and lets the manscaping thing go for the time being.

Derek sucks a few more hickeys into Stiles’ neck and shoulders, each one sending frissons of pleasure straight to Stiles’ dick, then just spends some quality time licking and nuzzling contentedly at the marks he’s made, which is kind of weird but also weirdly working for Stiles.

Between nuzzles, he groans against Stiles’ skin, “You smell _amazing_. It drives me crazy.”

Stiles isn’t quite sure what to say to that. As far as he knows, he just smells normal. He buys name-brand deodorant and shampoo from the drugstore; he’s pretty sure half of Beacon Hills probably uses the same stuff. He settles on a cautious, “Okay?” and forgets about it, swinging a leg over Derek’s hips to grind into him more.

That feels _really_ good, actually. Before he knows it he’s falling into a rhythm, spine tingling, the pleasure building. Derek rakes his hands down Stiles’ back and cups his ass, urging him on and pressing him closer, and Stiles slams his head back and comes, hard. He's pretty sure he bites his own tongue a little, but everything else feels so good that he barely notices.

When he's had a minute to gasp at the ceiling and recover, he realizes Derek has ducked down and unzipped his jeans. He's nosing at him through his boxers, pressing his face into Stiles’ groin, and while Stiles watches, he peels down the fabric to lick at him, cleaning him up. Stiles can't believe he would _want_ to—he's tasted his own come before, out of curiosity, and it was so gross and bitter that he immediately spit it out again—but he's not complaining about any situation that gets Derek’s mouth near his dick, especially when he seems so enthusiastic about it.

If Stiles hadn't literally just come his brains out, he would definitely be really, really close now from the wet heat of Derek's tongue on him and his humid breath on Stiles' damp skin and the way he looks, nestled between Stiles' legs with a blissed-out look on his face. It's almost overwhelming, especially now, when Stiles is so oversensitive from just coming.

After a minute or so he reluctantly shifts his hips away from Derek's mouth. "Too much," he explains when Derek frowns up at him.

Derek rubs a possessive hand over Stiles' hipbone and says, "Sorry. Just got—carried away." He still looks really worked up, actually, his pupils huge and the outline of his dick clear through his jeans when he sits back on his heels.

"You _really_ don't have anything to apologize for," Stiles assures him, trying and failing not to gawk. "So, um. What do you want to do now?"

Derek drops down on top of him, going for Stiles' neck again. Stiles is going to have to wear a scarf for a _week_ , he thinks cheerfully. Maybe two weeks.

Derek mumbles something into Stiles' skin, too quiet to catch.

Stiles nudges him with his knee. "C'mon, just say it. You can do whatever, I won't judge." He's pretty sure whatever it is, he's going to be 100% on board with anyway. He's watched a lot of porn, enough to know there's not much he doesn't find at least a little bit hot. Usually more than just a little.

Derek says in a rush, "I—want to come on you and rub it into your skin."

It's kind of adorable how embarrassed he looks about it.

Stiles grins and twists up under him enough to wiggle out of his shirt. "Okay, yeah. Awesome. It's all yours."

A shudder goes through Derek at that, and he practically _pounces_ , shoving his jeans down his thighs and crouching over Stiles to work his dick furiously. Stiles reaches out to help, tangling his fingers with Derek’s, and it’s not long before Derek is coming with a throaty groan, smearing his palm into the mess on Stiles’ stomach and burying his face in the side of Stiles’ neck.

Almost immediately, though, he tenses up and jerks back like something's wrong, only it’s not Derek leaning over Stiles, it’s this masked _thing_ with fangs and glowing yellow eyes and what the everliving _fuck_ —

Stiles flails and falls off the bed.

*****

Five minutes later, Stiles is sitting beside Derek on the kitchen counter, pressing an ice pack to Derek’s forehead and trying to decide if he overreacted when he grabbed his baseball bat off the floor and hit Derek in the head with it.

To be fair, he didn’t know what the fuck was going on or even if Derek was still _Derek_. He was kind of running on instinct and adrenaline. It was intense. His hands are still shaking.

In any case, he’d definitely hoped that losing his virginity was going to involve a lot less yelling and bleeding and general embarrassment. Silly him, he’d thought that when he finally had sex with someone, it would be at least mostly normal and not pants-shittingly terrifying.

The good news is that Derek has a very hard skull. Almost superhumanly hard, Stiles would even venture to say. After only about half a minute with the ice pack, he bats Stiles’ hand away and hops down off the counter, grumbling that it doesn’t hurt anymore.

“At least let me clean the blood off your face,” Stiles says, so Derek meekly sits back down and lets him.

The weird thing is, Stiles definitely broke the skin a little bit—otherwise where did the blood come from?—but when he’s washed Derek’s face clean, there’s no wound. Not even a bump or a bruise. It’s like the last five minutes never even happened.

“I heal fast,” Derek says, not meeting Stiles’ eye.

That’s just about the last straw. Stiles needs to know what’s going on, and he needs to know it _now_. “No one heals _that_ fast, and are you ever going to explain what the hell you were playing at back there? Where did you even get that mask? Was that some kind of sick prank or what?”

Derek buries his head in his hands and groans. “Fuck, my mom is going to kill me.”

Stiles isn’t sure what Derek’s mom has to do with any of this, but he lets it slide for now. There are bigger questions. “Dude, I’m going to kill you first if you don’t explain what’s going on. Whatever it was, it wasn’t funny, okay?”

Derek lifts his head up, looking very sincere. “Trust me, it wasn’t a prank. I wouldn’t do that to you.”

“Okay, but where’d you get the mask? Why did you even _have_ a mask?”

“It’s… not a mask. It’s my face.”

Which makes absolutely _no sense at all_ , a lot like everything else that’s happened in the last five minutes. “Uh, I would beg to differ. I’m looking at your face right now and there are definitely no fangs or sideburns or weird glowy eyes anywhere. Also, I'm pretty sure that would be physically impossible, so.”

“Don’t hit me again,” Derek says instead of a real answer, and before Stiles can ask just _why_ Derek thinks he would hit him again, Derek blinks and his whole face changes—eyes brightening from hazel-green to electric gold, the bones of his face rippling under his skin, his ears getting fleshier and pointier, little fangs sliding down from his mouth to press into his lower lip.

Stiles _shouts_ and stumbles backwards against the sink.

When he’s calmed down a little (not much, but enough to get air into his lungs again), he gasps, “Whoa, do that again.”

Derek does.

Stiles makes him do it another three times before he finally has to accept that what he’s seeing is real. That, or Stiles took some LSD today without knowing about it and is now hallucinating. Neither option feels like a really compelling choice.

It’s a little easier not to freak out now, though, with the element of surprise taken out of the picture. Just sitting there on Stiles’ kitchen counter with his jeans still undone, watching Stiles almost apologetically, Derek looks more ridiculous than anything else. He can barely close his mouth around his fangs, and his ears look like something out of a _Lord of the Rings_ orc Halloween costume. Not to mention, his hair is still sticking out all over the place from where Stiles had his hands in it.

“So… I guess we should talk about this,” Stiles says at last. “Is it some kind of, um, medical condition?”

“Not exactly,” Derek says.

*

So it turns out werewolves exist, and Stiles’ boyfriend is one.

Derek’s feelings about the inaccuracies in _The Werewolf of Paris_ suddenly make a lot more sense. Among other things.

“Is that why you keep offering to let me borrow your jacket even when I haven’t asked? Is it, like, a scent thing?”

Derek nods, a little abashed. "I like it when it smells like both of us, together. It's comforting." 

“And oh my god, that’s why you have all that wolf-themed stuff! Like the notebooks and the socks!”

Derek looks a little chagrined. “Yeah, compliments of my sisters. They think it’s hilarious to give me things like that for every single Christmas and birthday. It's all one big inside joke to them.”

“I have to agree with your sisters on that one. It is pretty funny.”

“Maybe it is, the first dozen times. After that it gets a little old.”

“What about your parents, are they werewolves too?” 

“Yeah,” Derek says, and then, blushing, “They know about you. They could smell it.”

And Stiles thought having a _sheriff_ as a dad was hard. “That’s gotta be so inconvenient. I bet you can’t hide anything from them.” Speaking of which... “Wait a minute, does this mean they’re going to know we had sex?!?”

Derek goes pale.

*

They have about fifteen minutes until Derek’s curfew. Derek has showered three times, thoroughly, and changed into some of Stiles’ clothes. Not much in Stiles’ closet actually fits Derek, especially through the arms and shoulders, but they managed to dig up a baggy t-shirt and sweatpants that fit okay. Hopefully it’ll be enough. It’ll still smell like Derek was at Stiles’ house, of course, and one look at him is enough to tell those aren’t his clothes, but it’s better than Derek wearing home the clothes he had on when they were making out. He’s got those in a plastic bag so he can wash them later.

“I texted Cora to come outside and give me the smell test before I go in,” he assures Stiles when they’re saying goodbye, parked outside Derek’s house. “She’ll make fun of me, but not as much as my other sisters, and anyway, she’s the most easily bribable. It should work out okay.”

Stiles shakes his head. “Man, your life is so weird. Okay. Good luck. And, uh, sorry again for hitting you with the baseball bat.”

“It’s okay.” Derek shrugs. “It’s not the worst reaction I’ve ever seen to the werewolf reveal.”

Stiles doubts that, but he appreciates that Derek is trying to make him feel better. “Okay, well, I promise I’m done freaking out about it, and”—he throws in a wink—“I’ll be thinking about creative ways to make it up to you.”

Derek grins. “I bet.”

“Anyway, I actually think the werewolf thing is pretty cool. I’m probably going to be texting you questions about it nonstop all night, just as a heads up.”

Derek’s smile gets a little wider. “ _Just_ about the werewolf stuff?”

“Well,” Stiles says playfully, sliding a hand up Derek's arm, “I could also start to fill you in on my extensive mental list of sex stuff I want to try with you sometime. But only if you wanted.”

“I want,” Derek says. He leans over the gearshift to give Stiles a lingering kiss goodbye, and Stiles almost accidentally honks the horn with his elbow. “Smooth,” Derek laughs against his mouth.

“Yeah, but you love it!” Stiles calls after him as he climbs out.

Derek pauses to look back up at him. “Yeah, I do,” he says softly, and then he closes the car door and starts heading up the driveway.

“What— Derek! You can’t just drop a bombshell like that and then just walk off before I can say it back!” Stiles yells, knowing Derek will be able to hear him just fine.

Derek just throws a smirk over his shoulder and keeps walking. That asshole. Stiles loves him anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I make no claims to have actually read _The Werewolf of Paris_ , but I would be very interested to find out if it’s as delightfully terrible as its Wikipedia page makes it sound.  
> *  
> Just to clarify: Originally this story was one chapter long, and then in response to reader requests I wrote a sequel, which is this (ch. 2). I don't really plan to write a ch. 3 at this point!


End file.
